Lucasfilm Responds to 7-Year-Old’s Request to Let Jedi Marry
geekdad.com
geekdad.com
In my own mind (and hopefully to some extent at Disney), the prequels and special editions are C-canon, to be disregarded whenever they conflict in any way with the pre-1997 scripts.
Then again, in the original trilogy the only trained force-sensitive people we hear of are 3 human male and Yoda. On top of that we have a brother and a sister. There's not a lot of room for romance here.
The brother and sister outside of the trained count have to refer to Luke and Leia (Luke isn't trained at the beginning of the trilogy, but is at the end), so 4 human males (Luke, Vader, Kenobi, and Palpatine) in the trained count would double-count Luke.
STOP, now a related thought about why one of them is unlikely to reproduce due to the limited female characters in the movie. "On top of that we have a brother and a sister."
But I can see how your reading of it would make sense, since it removes the potential count error I read it as having.
Those are who we see. We hear references to others in a manner which is ambiguous to whether they are strictly in the past or just rare and comparatively low-profile at the time.
I'm more surprised that a 7 year old doesn't consider girls icky.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a big StarWars geek, I've only seen the movies and occasionally read some comics, and I loathed the "prequel trilogy")
It seems from an evolutionary perspective that it's a very bad idea for Jedi not to marry and have kids, because it stops the traits that make them strong enough in the force from being carried on or even improved in the next generation.
With the Sith not being restrained by such a code, it would seem like this puts the Jedi at a significant disadvantage.
Not to mix franchises or anything, but it's a little bit like how Gandalf won't touch the one ring or allow it to be offered to him. He could have taken it and killed all the Orcs by himself. But at what cost?
I personally think the idea of the Jedi as celibate defenders of justice makes far more sense, and is far more satisfying. But of course directors can't help but add lame love stories to otherwise exciting adventure stories, and the vast majority of people are hung up on the whole "family" thing, so I guess I'll just have to live with it :)
Agreed. People (at least human people) are strongly hardwired to see to the well being of close kindred, specially their own offspring. Trying to renounce to wordly affairs and commit to a goal and an ideal that is greater than yourself while trying to raise a normal family would be insane.
On the other hand, there is no reason to think that a whole family/clan cannot be formally committed to such goals and ideals. So, I think the new taboo should be that Jedis can only marry other Jedis. And the consequences of one member of your particular family unit going Sith may be catastrophic.
Also, it's not Lucas anymore. He sold Lucasfilm (and LucasArts) to Disney for $4B back in 2012.
Ok, but that brings up another question. Is this a change in policy for all Jedi, or a special dispensation just for this boy?